Regional patients wait months for fly-in fly-out help

Despite the growing awareness of mental health, some patients in rural and regoinal Australia receive no help at all or have to wait for months to see a fly-in, fly-out psychiatrist.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: In any given year in Australia around a million adults are dealing with depression and more than two million are coping with anxiety. For those suffering from these all too common ailments its little consolation to know Australia spends $28 billion a year on mental health. Despite this enormous figure, many sufferers receive no help at all, particularly in rural and regional Australia where patients sometimes have to wait months to see a fly in/fly out psychiatrist. Miriam Hall reports.

MIRIAM HALL, REPORTER: It's 6am at Bankstown airport in Sydney's west and the start of a long commute for psychiatrist Dr Andy Campbell.

ANDY CAMPBELL, PSYCHIATRIST: I'm Andy, you're coming as well are you?

MIRIAM HALL: Dr Campbell is flying 800 kilometres to North West New South Wales. He makes this trip four or five times a year. First stop is Brewarrina. Under 2,000 people live in this outback community. With no psychiatrists based here they rely on fly in/fly out care.

NURSE: How are you? Good to see you.

ANDY CAMPBELL: Good to see you.

MIRIAM HALL: It's been a month since the last psychiatrist was in town.

NURSE: Hi, Dr Andy.

ANDY CAMPBELL: G'day. I'll be in talking to someone who's been stressed, a relationship breakdown. We've got a mother who has been in, her daughter suicided some time ago and a number of other people whose medication needs to be checked and monitored.

MIRIAM HALL: With no expertise available locally, Dr Campbell has to video conference call a colleague 400 kilometres away for advice.

ANDY CAMPBELL: He's got some metabolic problems from the Clozapine.

COLLEAGUE: We can get a pharmacist to ship the medications up there where he can collect them from the hospital. We've been able to make this run fairly smoothly in a number of outlying districts now.

ANDY CAMPBELL: It's partly the tyranny of distance, it's hard to get people here working and living in the area.

MIRIAM HALL: Dr Campbell's next stop is Bourke. This town has a dwindling population, fewer than 3,000 people live here. Bourke has major social problems and a high crime rate. And like all the towns in this region there are no local psychiatrists.

ANDREW LEWIS, BOURKE MAYOR: Law and order, kids being very, very anti social, alcohol's a problem, drugs are a problem. Through services and police and that trying to deal with it but it's a big issue that's bigger than Bourke.

STEPHEN HOWARTH, BOURKE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY MEMBER: We've got people that, they fall through the gaps and they're trying to cope the best way they can. And unfortunately there's that other self means of medication.

STEPHEN HOWARTH: You know, you can go around town and you can see the persons that are lost or, you know, and the devastation that it does in the family, immediate family, extended family and across the community, so it has that roller coaster type impact. So in the end everyone gets affected.

ANDY CAMPBELL: The hydroponic that's around now is more potent - it's got more of the psychotic inducing stuff in it.

MIRIAM HALL: Dr Campbell and his colleagues are worried about the rising potency of readily available drugs.

ANDY CAMPBELL: One horrible thing that can happen is you start hearing voices.

MIRIAM HALL: Community workers like Julie Murphy visit mentally ill people every day.

CAROLINE DUNLOP: It's totally more than depressing. It's like you really want to go into bed, pull a blanket up your, over your head and just stay there. You're just so down and you know that nobody loves you anymore and you're not worth anything. Just getting my recipe, just to make sure. Don't wanna do a boo boo.

MIRIAM HALL: But with Julie Murphy's support, Caroline is learning to live with her illness and get involved in the community. Mental health care in regional Australia lags behind the cities. Mental health advocates are demanding action.

IAN HICKIE, BRAIN AND MIND RESEARCH INSTITUTE: We need specialists to support those services but just people flying in or out for a day or two is not a real service so you've got to back the community at a local level and you have to have a significant number of people actually residing in those communities 24/7 to actually have services.

MIRIAM HALL: Those on the front line like Dr Andy Campbell believe the bush needs and deserves full time mental health care.

ANDY CAMPBELL: If I get a health problem and can't come out it might take six to 12 months before we can recruit someone to take my place. So there needs to be incentives for people to come in. But it's a very rewarding job when you're out here.